Despite a powerful lobby of pesticide companies and lawncare contractors that deluged City Hall for days, Toronto City Council has adopted a bylaw to prohibit the cosmetic use of pesticides in all neighbourhoods. The vote was seen as a significant victory for the environmental movement, and a real slap in the face to well-connected lobbyist Jeff Lyons. His strategy included scaremongering newspaper ads, a bogus "environmental" coalition (made up of pesticide applicators) and a massive phone lobby.

Why did so many at City Hall support the recommendations of the Board of Health in the face of such overwhelming opposition? Certainly the alliance of organizations supporting the pesticide by-law was significant - from the College of Family Physicians to the Steelworkers and Labour Council. More importantly, that alliance represents a clear understanding that the proliferation of chemicals in our workplaces and our communities represents a real danger to both health and the environment.

For unions, this understanding has grown from seeing the horrific spread of cancer and other industrial diseases among workers and their families. In Windsor and Sarnia we know of children who have been stricken because of second-hand exposure. In Hamilton, chemicals released in the Plastimat fire left dozens of firefighters ill, while at the Hickson Scarborough fire nobody knew what materials were involved. The Workers Health and Safety Centre has done extensive work to alert us about the dangers posed by the airborne chemical soup that exists in too many workplaces, while the United Farmworkers distributed thousands of videos about pesticide spraying resulting in huge cancer spikes around growers fields in California. Nobody today can honestly say that spreading dilutions of poison into the atmosphere is safe.

The Canadian Labour Congress is part of the country wide Campaign for Pesticide Reduction (CPR!), in conjunction with a number of environmental and public health organizations. But the producers of these chemicals have fought back, spending millions on lobbyists and lawyers. The first by-law that passed in the town of Hudson, Quebec was challenged all the way to the Supreme Court. The decision there to uphold the bylaw has opened the door for other cities and towns, and with Canada's largest city now on board, the tide has turned.

This is an issue that has many facets. Pesticide run-off is a major polluter of our lakes and rivers. The production of these and other chemicals poses daily risks to the workers in manufacturing plants, as well as concern in the community surrounding them. Almost all the human evidence used by the International Agency for Research on Cancer to classify pesticides as carcinogenic comes from occupational exposures. We support, not just the phasing out of these products, but also a right-to-know by-law that informs neighbours and city emergency services of what chemicals are being used in factories today.

The Executive Board recommends that: